Commercial Real Estate Pro Network

Commercial Real Estate Professionals who work with Investors, Buyers and Sellers of Commercial Real Estate. We discuss todays opportunities, problems & solutions in Commercial Real Estate.

Commercial Real Estate Financing Options with George Otel - CRE PN #520 09/11/2025

BIGGEST RISK with George Otel 09/09/2025

BIGGEST RISK with George Otel J Darrin Gross If you're willing, I'd like to ask you, George Otel, what is the BIGGEST RISK? George Otel The biggest risk when it comes to funding, is not looking for funding early enough, because the biggest risk is when people call me that they need funding yesterday. So it's I tell people you always have to look for funding, even if you don't need it, because when you need it, you may not find it where you may be. Tweaks. Expensive because of your situation. Let's say you got to look for funding when you're doing good, when you're doing great, because the lenders see less risk in you, because when, when you desperate, you you have a need your fire, fire you're burning, then that's a risk. So for the risk, they want to get more premium. So that's, that's how it works. The biggest risk is like, if, if you always got to look for funding, because it's you got to have funding options lined up, because you always growing. You're looking for equipment, you're looking for working capital, even lines of credit. We have lines of credit. So I tell people you rather have those lines of credit and not use it, then you need it and you don't have it, because that's that's another thing. So for example, there's a lot of loans do right right now for the there's a lot of balloons, though, and banks will like to when you approach them, like five, six months in advance to your balloon. You don't want to wait two months because it's too late. It's going to take two, three months to go to the process. So once the balloon is done, it's you're going to be in default. So it's because you got to refinance before that. So the biggest risk is not looking for funding early enough. And again, in good times, the banks, local banks, are really good. I love my local banks, but we are in uncertain times, a lot of volatility, and they don't like risk, so they avoid risk. Also private money lenders, they more risk. They have more appetite for the risk. And there is a small premium, and obviously it's worth it, because you'd rather pay a small premium and get your funding lined up, then have no funding option and be in a unpleasant situation. So also working with a funding finance broker like our company, because we have multiple options lined up. So basically, when the clients come to us in 1015, minutes conversation, initial conversation, we present them multiple funding option. We ask them about how they position their assets, the cash flow, how everything works. Then we present the Multiple option, because when you go to the bank, to to the local bank, they give you one option, and he said yes or no, but we have different options lined up. So if this one doesn't work, we're moving to the next and so on, until you get the funding and you getting the to the results you you need. /episode/index/show/commercialrealestatepronetwork/id/37854570

Virtual Assistants for Real Estate Focused Businesses with Pete Neubig - CRE PN #519 09/04/2025

BIGGEST RISK with Pete Neubig 09/02/2025

Interior Design Space Planning for Multifamily Housing with Marcy Sagel - CRE PN #518 08/28/2025

BIGGEST RISK with Marcy Sagel 08/26/2025

BIGGEST RISK with Marcy Sagel J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you, Marcy Sagel, what is the BIGGEST RISK? Marcy Sagel I'm going to answer that in a few parts, because there's different aspects of the job that can be different risks. So when we pick materials for a project, we have to make sure we're working with tried and true materials, okay, materials that are not going to fail on a job, for instance, in the units, if we select a, you know, vinyl plank flooring, we want to make sure it's going to last. So we only work with manufacturers that we know are going to give us a solid product, not we're not trying to test some new product on different people. We really want to make sure that those stand the test of time from a risk standpoint. So that's probably one of the biggest things. The second thing is the furniture. We also specify all of the furniture, and are an installation. So we put all of the furniture into warehouses, and we have to make sure that the warehouses are bonded and insured and going to be doing replacement if there's any problems. And we use it. We use warehousing all over the country, and so we do a lot of due diligence to make sure that risk is minimal, and we work with a lot of the same vendors so that we make sure that we have very, very, very solid in warehousing around the country. Really, really important to our job. There's so many aspects of that the material goods that we order are sent directly to those warehouses. They have them come in on camera. They're signed for. If there's any look or damage to any box or item or palette, they immediately are under record with us to open it up, inspect it and give us a photo and report immediately, within 24 hours, so that we can report it to the manufacturer, and we want to make sure that our, you know, installations go as smoothly as possible. We have a really good track record with that, and the reason we do is because we use really good receivers. They receive it, they're knowledgeable. They take a picture of everything coming in, it's got an item number, it's got a quantity number, and then we have it on record that we can then log into their software and see all of those items online and match it up to our spreadsheets. It's very, very, very organized, and we like it that way, so we only work with groups that are very organized and can follow sort of the regiment that we're used to, so that we can minimize any of the risk. /episode/index/show/commercialrealestatepronetwork/id/37854275

Workforce Housing Community Development with Lissette Calderon - CRE PN #517 08/21/2025

BIGGEST RISK with Lissette Calderon 08/19/2025

BIGGEST RISK with Lissette Calderon J Darrin Gross If you're willing, I'd like to ask you. Lissette Calderon, What is the BIGGEST RISK? Lissette Calderon Well, I think in today's world, probably the biggest risk you have is uncertainty. And how do you underwrite uncertainty? You know what happens next? How do you underwrite whether it's Harris insurance numbers, construction costs, what does that uncertainly look like, and what, how do you underwrite that? So, you know, how do we do it? You know, we really can't avoid it because, you know, we're developers. So of course, our job is, you know, we really think about a how do we minimize it? So we make sure that, you know, every project, you know, is built, oftentimes, by the same team, the same architect, the same project, and, you know, same contractor, and so forth. And then, you know, we enter into a guaranteed maximum price contract, so ahead of time, we already know what that number is going to look like. Of course, we're building contingencies. So we minimize those uncertainties, so that that's, that's always the hard part, and then in terms of, you know, transferring the risk, and then the insurance, and that's probably how you get to a little bit of the avoiding the risk. You know, especially in South Florida, one of the things that people always talk about is kind of like sea level rise, flood level and how does climate play into what we're doing? Well, I can't move our projects out of South Florida because they're in South Florida, you know, the, you know, number of our projects. So in terms of transferring the risk, you know, we think about Master policies. Our projects are on master policies. So again, we're looking at the risk, kind of throughout the entire portfolio, not just on one independent portfolio and that that has been, you know, very effective for us in terms of mitigating our insurance expenses. Because really, the two biggest uncontrollables that we have as operators are real estate taxes and insurance. So real estate taxes, we've really been able to address that in Florida through, you know, kind of this statutory. Uh, you know, or an instance now that live local, and, you know, we're really able to address that and work with that. And then, from an insurance standpoint, it's always, you know, the next big challenge. And the way insurance numbers, you know, have gone up historically, and we've been able to mitigate that through the master policy and, you know, and how do we avoid, to the extent possible, avoiding is we build really well, you know. So we've got the flood panels, and we build that the right elevations, and we put in, you know, kind of the right, you know, glazing and glass and everything that Mills meets or exceeds the South Florida building codes. And then, you know, we try to go into neighborhoods that we know make sense from a you know, kind of climate standpoint. So Isla pad is up on a ridge. And so we really take into account a lot of these things, and we think about it. And, you know, it's always very exciting to us, you know, after, you know, a big storm, you know, where you'll see kind of flooding on the streets, and some of these pictures that go nationally, our areas, you know, are immediately dry right after the storm, so it's, you know, and I guess that's how we probably avoid it. We build in great locations, and we build a great product, you know, how do we minimize it? We get into, like, you know, guaranteed maximum price, and really kind of understand what the uncertainty and really try to mitigate that uncertainty. And then, terms of transferring, it's, you know, we look at master policies and how we put those in place. /episode/index/show/commercialrealestatepronetwork/id/37746850

Commercial Real Estate Career Success Skills with Allen Buchanan - CRE PN #516 08/14/2025

BIGGEST RISK with Allen Buchanan 08/12/2025

Virtual Assistants Propel Real Estate Professionals Success with Bob Lachance - CRE PN #515 08/07/2025

BIGGEST RISK with Bob Lachance 08/05/2025

Geothermal Heating Efficient Cooling Commercial Real Estate with Bryan Roberts - CRE PN #514 07/31/2025

BIGGEST RISK with Bryan Roberts 07/31/2025

Real Estate Investing with 30-Year Fixed Rate Loans with Adiel Gorel - CRE PN #513 07/24/2025

BIGGEST RISK with Adiel Gorel 07/22/2025

Public Adjusting Insurance Claims with Andy Gurczak - CRE PN #512 07/17/2025

BIGGEST RISK with Andy Gurczak 07/15/2025

Build to Rent Single Family Rentals with Richard Ross - CRE PN #511 07/10/2025

BIGGEST RISK with Richard Ross 07/08/2025

Multifamily Investing Pivots for 2025 with Vince Gethings - CRE PN #510 07/03/2025

BIGGEST RISK with Vince Gethings 07/01/2025

Delinquent Tax Investing with Brian Seidensticker - CRE PN #509 06/26/2025

BIGGEST RISK with Brian Seidensticker 06/24/2025

Self-Directed IRA Note Investing with Eddie Speed - CRE PN #508 06/19/2025

BIGGEST RISK with Eddie Speed 06/17/2025

Return to Office Trends on Hospitality with Sundip Patel - CRE PN #507 06/12/2025

BIGGEST RISK with Sundip Patel 06/10/2025

AI in Real Estate with David Blumenfeld - CRE PN #506 06/05/2025

BIGGEST RISK with David Blumenfeld 06/03/2025

BIGGEST RISK with David Blumenfeld J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you. David Blumenfeld, what is the BIGGEST RISK? David Blumenfeld We're going to answer it a couple different ways, if that's okay. So I think I mean, and this, this first one might, might seem like a self serving answer, but I think the risk for real estate companies in general for not looking at technology. And again, it doesn't have to be the biggest, you know, the biggest, the newest, the the flashiest, but if you're not incorporating technology into your your your day to day operations, whether it be from a marketing perspective, a company, a leasing perspective, Building Management, etc, you are getting left behind and and the good news for you is that the real estate industry moves slow, but as it gets more and more competitive from insert certainly In certain asset classes, office being one of them to not be investing in kind of future proofing your building and your company is going to come back and bite you in the long term and so and both from a just an operational perspective, but also eventually, eventually from a recruiting perspective, where people who are going to you're going to want In your company are not going to want to work. Want to work at your company if you're not forward thinking. From a tech perspective, I think the biggest concern right now, excitement and concern certainly is with AI and things like conversational AI, like chat GPT, we have, we have clients who their legal departments come in and we can't use AI at all. And I think the concern, the practical concern there is, there is a risk of, if you're using kind of a, you know, chat GPT, or Microsoft co pilot, one of these, or Google Gemini, is it, depending on the information you're putting in to have, let's say you're like, I want to put, you know, I use it a lot for writing better copy, maybe of writing a better email than I wrote already, because I realized I'm just not saying that quite right. But you know, there's it's much more powerful than that. You can put in financial data, for example, that would spit back a spreadsheet for you, or different analysis that might you know normally take hours on in Excel. There is risk when you start to upload proprietary information from a financial perspective, but the but you need to kind of balance that risk with what you're what you're using those tools for, because they are very powerful and very efficient as well. So I think it's making sure you don't swing the pendulum one way or the other, like you need to certainly use AI in your business. But I think if you're going to start to do a lot of things through AI, you know, there are ways to protect the information that you're you're putting out there, and you don't have to just throw something in chat GPT. You can have an application that's specific to your company, that leverages AI, but may be able to spit out kind of your your own private version of chat GPT, so to speak. So you just need to be, you just need to understand the implications and the risks of of if you're using kind of a generic service, you know, be, you know, there is a risk that you're putting that data, not it's not necessarily means that those companies are going to use it against you, but you are uploading that information into into the cloud. And I think it's funny, you've seen a lot in America around like, Oh, we're going to ban Tiktok because we're worried about China, you know, stealing all this data. Well, China's come out with a lot of new AI platforms. Lately, nobody's talking about the data privacy implications. Like, I would be much more concerned about using, putting anything in a in a Chinese AI software platform versus, you know, my social media via Tiktok. So it's, it's just funny how people are not thinking about things holistically. And I think that's, that's just what you need to make sure you need to do. But again, as I said in my earlier very common beginning of, you know, the beginning of the conversation, don't get into analysis paralysis, where you justify doing nothing because you have to overthink it over and over again. /episode/index/show/commercialrealestatepronetwork/id/36813525

Commercial Real Estate Pro Network

TOPICS